Call it the great Budget headfake of 2012.
Signal that you're going to throw the Hail Mary pass, an epochal transformation. Scare the daylights out of the public-service unions. Rattle the opposition parties' cages, leading them to rear up on their hind legs, shake their fists and promise a fight for the ages.
Then deliver a budget that, while it does reiterate some previously announced, common-sense longer-term reforms in immigration, resource development, research and old age security, and while it does proffer some public-service layoffs, is not revolutionary at all. It's rather humdrum. It's downright inoffensive.
Thus, the opposition leaders' imprecations lose their sting. The media responds with a collective shrug. And the mainly centrist, moderately conservative populace, especially in vote-rich Ontario, is reassured that, far from having a dastardly hidden agenda, the Stephen Harper Conservatives are reasonable fellows. Like Goldilocks, they like their porridge neither too cold or too hot, but just right.
Policy-wise, Budget 2012 was a tepid document. The only surprise therein, which wasn't much of a surprise at all, was the slaying of the penny. That, too, was calculated to set just the right tone: A feel-good human-interest headline guaranteed to displease no one, save for a few crackpots and coin fetishists.
Politically, the document is already proving to be a winner, to the extent that it shores up Mr. Harper's left flank, which has grown vulnerable in recent months following a series of controversial moves, such as the end of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly and the abolition of the gun registry, as well as the continuing robocalls scandal. Mr. Harper needed to burnish his credentials as a moderate. Now he has.
But the budget raises another question, which one suspects is already quietly being asked in Conservative drawing rooms out west, and in rural Ontario: At what point do red-meat conservatives, and Conservatives, begin to wonder if their chosen political vehicle has become all that it once despised? When do they grow tired of being taken for granted, while the Harper government curries favour with retired teachers, fans of the Canada Council and the like?
Remember that the Reform Party, progenitor of the Conservative Party of Canada, arose as a Western-backed populist rebellion against Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives. The Mulroney Conservatives were deemed to be in thrall to Quebec, incapable of controlling federal spending and too politically correct by half.
In 2012 we have a Conservative government that recognizes Quebec as a nation within Canada; has boosted federal spending to levels far beyond those of the Liberal years, and will maintain it at those levels despite the moderate cuts announced last week; and is throwing money and resources into the reserve system (rather than abolishing the Indian Act and starting over). This budget, like all six previous Conservative budgets, is jam-packed with baubles targeting various groups. It is no more conservative, philosophically, than Jean Chrétien's budgets in the 1990s were liberal. Indeed Harper is beginning to look a great deal like Mr. Chrétien, policy-wise.
Until now, there have been few hints of dissent to the Conservatives' right. Senior members of Alberta's Wildrose Alliance, which now looks in a position to win the provincial election, get on well with the federal Conservatives (far better, if truth be told, than do Alison Redford's Alberta provincial Progressive Conservatives).
Tom Flanagan, a seminal conservative thinker and former advisor to Mr. Harper, mused during the minority years that "incremental" conservatism seemed to be a winning formula: Move the country steadily rightwards, but without making any sudden moves.
On May 2, 2011, however, the game changed. The Conservatives have carte blanche. If they don't dare reveal themselves as true conservatives now, then when will they ever? That won't get easier, presumably, as they get closer to re-election in 2015. The social-conservative wing of their party was jettisoned years ago. If fiscal conservatism goes too, then what's left?
Mr. Flanagan himself still sees no threat to the Conservatives' right. "Things would have to get completely out of control," he told me Friday, for that to happen.
But consider this: In the lead-up to the budget, the overwhelming majority of the Tory caucus was pushing for spending cuts greatly in excess of those announced last week. In the range of $4-billion to $8 billion, these MPs were pushing for the full $8-billion. They wound up with $5.2-billion.
The relative modesty of these cuts means the Tories may not be able to campaign on a balanced budget in 2015. That will depend on the rate of economic growth, and on interest rates. The budget forecasts a small deficit that year, with a return to surplus in 2015-16.
Therefore, back to the question: At what point do the most stalwart Conservatives and conservatives in Alberta, the right flank of the right flank, so to speak, start thinking about making the Wildrose Alliance a federal party? Call it Reform, Part Deux.
Original Article
Source: national post
Author: Michael Den Tandt
Signal that you're going to throw the Hail Mary pass, an epochal transformation. Scare the daylights out of the public-service unions. Rattle the opposition parties' cages, leading them to rear up on their hind legs, shake their fists and promise a fight for the ages.
Then deliver a budget that, while it does reiterate some previously announced, common-sense longer-term reforms in immigration, resource development, research and old age security, and while it does proffer some public-service layoffs, is not revolutionary at all. It's rather humdrum. It's downright inoffensive.
Thus, the opposition leaders' imprecations lose their sting. The media responds with a collective shrug. And the mainly centrist, moderately conservative populace, especially in vote-rich Ontario, is reassured that, far from having a dastardly hidden agenda, the Stephen Harper Conservatives are reasonable fellows. Like Goldilocks, they like their porridge neither too cold or too hot, but just right.
Policy-wise, Budget 2012 was a tepid document. The only surprise therein, which wasn't much of a surprise at all, was the slaying of the penny. That, too, was calculated to set just the right tone: A feel-good human-interest headline guaranteed to displease no one, save for a few crackpots and coin fetishists.
Politically, the document is already proving to be a winner, to the extent that it shores up Mr. Harper's left flank, which has grown vulnerable in recent months following a series of controversial moves, such as the end of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly and the abolition of the gun registry, as well as the continuing robocalls scandal. Mr. Harper needed to burnish his credentials as a moderate. Now he has.
But the budget raises another question, which one suspects is already quietly being asked in Conservative drawing rooms out west, and in rural Ontario: At what point do red-meat conservatives, and Conservatives, begin to wonder if their chosen political vehicle has become all that it once despised? When do they grow tired of being taken for granted, while the Harper government curries favour with retired teachers, fans of the Canada Council and the like?
Remember that the Reform Party, progenitor of the Conservative Party of Canada, arose as a Western-backed populist rebellion against Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives. The Mulroney Conservatives were deemed to be in thrall to Quebec, incapable of controlling federal spending and too politically correct by half.
In 2012 we have a Conservative government that recognizes Quebec as a nation within Canada; has boosted federal spending to levels far beyond those of the Liberal years, and will maintain it at those levels despite the moderate cuts announced last week; and is throwing money and resources into the reserve system (rather than abolishing the Indian Act and starting over). This budget, like all six previous Conservative budgets, is jam-packed with baubles targeting various groups. It is no more conservative, philosophically, than Jean Chrétien's budgets in the 1990s were liberal. Indeed Harper is beginning to look a great deal like Mr. Chrétien, policy-wise.
Until now, there have been few hints of dissent to the Conservatives' right. Senior members of Alberta's Wildrose Alliance, which now looks in a position to win the provincial election, get on well with the federal Conservatives (far better, if truth be told, than do Alison Redford's Alberta provincial Progressive Conservatives).
Tom Flanagan, a seminal conservative thinker and former advisor to Mr. Harper, mused during the minority years that "incremental" conservatism seemed to be a winning formula: Move the country steadily rightwards, but without making any sudden moves.
On May 2, 2011, however, the game changed. The Conservatives have carte blanche. If they don't dare reveal themselves as true conservatives now, then when will they ever? That won't get easier, presumably, as they get closer to re-election in 2015. The social-conservative wing of their party was jettisoned years ago. If fiscal conservatism goes too, then what's left?
Mr. Flanagan himself still sees no threat to the Conservatives' right. "Things would have to get completely out of control," he told me Friday, for that to happen.
But consider this: In the lead-up to the budget, the overwhelming majority of the Tory caucus was pushing for spending cuts greatly in excess of those announced last week. In the range of $4-billion to $8 billion, these MPs were pushing for the full $8-billion. They wound up with $5.2-billion.
The relative modesty of these cuts means the Tories may not be able to campaign on a balanced budget in 2015. That will depend on the rate of economic growth, and on interest rates. The budget forecasts a small deficit that year, with a return to surplus in 2015-16.
Therefore, back to the question: At what point do the most stalwart Conservatives and conservatives in Alberta, the right flank of the right flank, so to speak, start thinking about making the Wildrose Alliance a federal party? Call it Reform, Part Deux.
Original Article
Source: national post
Author: Michael Den Tandt
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